LONDON (AP) \u2014 When pop groups and rock bands practice or perform, they rely on their guitars, keyboards and drumsticks to make music. Oliver McCann, a British AI music creator who goes by the stage name imoliver, fires up his chatbot. <\/p>\n
McCann’s songs span a range of genres, from indie-pop to electro-soul to country-rap. There\u2019s just one crucial difference between McCann and traditional musicians. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have no musical talent at all,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t sing, I can\u2019t play instruments, and I have no musical background at all.” <\/p>\n
McCann, 37, who has a background as a visual designer, started experimenting with AI to see if it could boost his creativity and “bring some of my lyrics to life.\u201d Last month, he signed with independent record label Hallwood Media after one of his tracks racked up 3 million streams, in what’s billed as the first time a music label has inked a contract with an AI music creator. <\/p>\n
McCann is an example of how ChatGPT-style AI song generation tools<\/a> like Suno and Udio have spawned a wave of synthetic music. A movement most notably highlighted by a fictitious group, Velvet Sundown, that went viral even though all its songs, lyrics and album art were created by AI. <\/p>\n It fueled debate about AI’s role in music while raising fears about “AI slop” \u2014 automatically generated low quality mass produced content. It also cast a spotlight on AI song generators that are democratizing song making but threaten to disrupt the music industry. <\/p>\n Experts say generative AI is set to transform the music world. However, there are scant details, so far, on how it’s impacting the $29.6 billion global recorded music market, which includes about $20 billion from streaming. <\/p>\n The most reliable figures come from music streaming service Deezer, which estimates that 18% of songs uploaded to its platform every day are purely AI generated, though they only account for a tiny amount of total streams, hinting that few people are actually listening. Other, bigger streaming platforms like Spotify haven’t released any figures on AI music. <\/p>\n Udio declined to comment on how many users it has and how many songs it has generated. Suno did not respond to a request for comment. Both have free basic levels as well as pro and premium tiers that come with access to more advanced AI models. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a total boom. It\u2019s a tsunami,\u201d said Josh Antonuccio, director of Ohio University’s School of Media Arts and Studies. The amount of AI generated music \u201cis just going to only exponentially increase\u201d as young people grow up with AI and become more comfortable with it, he said. <\/p>\n Yet generative AI, with its ability to spit out seemingly unique content, has divided the music world, with musicians and industry groups complaining that recorded works are being exploited to train AI models that power song generation tools. <\/p>\n Record labels are trying to fend off the threat that AI music startups pose to their revenue streams even as they hope to tap into it for new earnings, while recording artists worry that it will devalue their creativity. <\/p>\n Three major record companies, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Records, filed lawsuits<\/a> last year against Suno and Udio for copyright infringement. In June, the two sides also reportedly entered negotiations that could go beyond settling the lawsuits and set rules for how artists are paid when AI is used to remix their songs. <\/p>\n GEMA, a German royalty collection society, has sued Suno, accusing it of generating music similar to songs like \u201cMambo No. 5\u201d by Lou Bega and \u201cForever Young\u201d by Alphaville. <\/p>\n